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The 20 Uighurs were taken to this safe house on December 17, 2009. Two days later they were deported at gunpoint to China. (ABC News)There are claims the United Nations’ refugee agency (UNHCR) ignored repeated warnings about the imminent forced deportation of 20 Uighur asylum seekers from Cambodia to China last year.

The Cambodian government was condemned around the world when it deported the asylum seekers at gunpoint in December.

Two Australian women – joint Nobel Peace Prize winner Sister Denise Coghlan and Taya Hunt, a legal officer with the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) – represented the Uighurs for six months prior to their deportation.

The pair have spoken exclusively to AM.

Ms Hunt provided legal and humanitarian support to the Uighurs and is one of the few people to have close contact with them.

“[They were] very grateful for the assistance we were providing them and generally just a nice, calm group of people,” she said.

“There was a pregnant woman in the group and her beautiful two children.”

Ms Hunt says the first Uighur arrived in Cambodia in June and the rest in October.

She says the Uighurs began to feel unsafe and concerned they would be returned to China.

Under arrangements in Cambodia at the time, refugee status determinations were handled jointly by the UNHCR and the Cambodian government.

Ms Hunt says repeated warnings were given to the UNHCR that the Uighurs felt uneasy about their applications being processed by Cambodia.

“We were becoming increasingly concerned, as the Uighurs themselves were becoming increasingly concerned, and expressed that concern on almost a daily basis to the UNHCR,” she said.

AM has information that the JRS communicated at least five warnings to the UNHCR.

An excerpt of a letter sent to the UNHCR from JRS on December 10 reads: “JRS’s principal concern is that one or more of these applicants may be forcibly removed from Cambodia to China with an outstanding application for refugee status.

“Informing this concern is, firstly, the fact that Cambodia has historically provided uneven protection for registered asylum seekers; secondly, incidents this year which indicate that the Cambodian Government Refugee Office may not be able to objectively consider cases from China; and thirdly, Chinese-Cambodian political relations.”

Ms Hunt says the warnings were ignored, and on December 17 the Uighur asylum seekers were moved to a jointly run UNHCR/Cambodian government safe house.

On December 19 the asylum seekers were moved at gunpoint, and a day later they were flown to China.

Ms Hunt says the JRS advised the UNHCR against moving the men to the safe house.

“Given that the vice-president was scheduled to visit Cambodia the weekend of the deportation or the weekend they were moved to the safe house, I think given the context and also that we had been advising the UN that the Uighurs felt unsafe, that they felt they were being watched, it was a serious error of judgment on the part of UNHCR,” she said.

‘Lambs to slaughter’

Sister Coghlan, who heads the JRS in Cambodia, says she was also against the move to the safe house.

“Because both the UNHCR and the government had told the people it was a safe house or had guaranteed it would be safe for them, it was like leading lambs to the slaughter,” she said.

UNHCR spokeswoman Kitty McKinsey says the refugee agency believed the Cambodian government was acting in good faith.

“We were doing everything we could to support Cambodia,” she said.

“But the essence is that it’s the responsibility of states to provide protection, and we don’t start with an assumption that countries can’t fairly handle cases from one country or another.”

Ms McKinsey declined to comment on whether the warnings from the JRS were taken seriously.

“It was Cambodia’s responsibility to protect these people, but during this transitional phase we were working with Cambodia to help them and the point is that Cambodia did not complete the process,” she said.

Ms Hunt, though, is also critical of the time it took for the asylum seekers to have their claims processed.

“We submitted in October that the applicant was at risk and accordingly that the UNHCR should hand down a decision on his case as quickly as possible,” she said.

“It is very, very unfortunate that the UNHCR delayed handing down a decision on his case.”

Full control

Ms McKinsey is adamant the blame for the deportations lies with Cambodia.

She says Cambodia had been gradually taking control of asylum applications and took full control two days before the deportations.

“We tried very hard to stop the deportation to China because we knew the dangers they could face,” she said.

“We even had staff at Phnom Penh airport to physically try and stop the deportation, but unfortunately they left through the military airport which we didn’t have access to.”

Sister Coghlan believes there should be a thorough review of the way the claims were handled.

“These people were taken at gunpoint from the safe house and taken to a place belonging to the ministry of interior,” she said.

“The next night they were deported to China on a VIP jet. One would have to say the joint processing of the Uighur cases was a complete catastrophe and a tragedy.”

Cambodia now has complete responsibility for processing asylum claims and the JRS believes asylum seekers arriving from countries such as Burma, which has friendly ties with Cambodia, are also at risk.

‘Abhorrent decision’

The Member for Melbourne Ports Michael Danby has criticised the decision of the Cambodian Government to extradite the Uighurs to China.

The decision has been criticised by MPs and senators in Canada and Italy.

Mr Danby says the decision shows a disgraceful disregard for the welfare of the 20 Uighurs.

“The extradition of 20 Uighurs to China, which will likely end with their execution, is anything but humane,’ Mr Danby said.

“The political, cultural and social suffering of the Uighur are further entrenched when countries do nothing to protect their human rights. I condemn this abhorrent decision.”

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Gen. Mehmet Riza Bekin Pasha was renowned as an advocate for the Uyghur people.

RFAGeneral Mehmet Riza Bekin Pasha’s body is carried to its burial site by a military guard in Ankara, Feb. 18, 2010.

ISTANBUL, Turkey—Gen. Mehmet Riza Bekin Pasha, an outspoken advocate for ethnic Uyghurs living under Chinese rule, died in the Turkish capital Ankara this week at the age of 85, after a six-month treatment for lung disease at the Gulhane Military Medical Academy here.

Active in Uyghur politics and education, he also staged Uyghur-related human rights events in Turkey and founded the nonprofit East Turkestan National Freedom Center, which supported Uyghur students in Turkey and around the world.

Rebiya Kadeer, president of the World Uyghur Congress, described him as a forceful leader.

“I am so sad to lose my friend—one of strong alliance to our Uyghur cause. He is a history-maker who brought glory to the Uyghur people and who respectfully dedicated his whole life to their freedom,” Kadeer said.

Former Chairman of the World Uyghur Congress Erkin Alptekin flew to Ankara from Germany to attend Pasha’s funeral.

Full honors

“He took on duties as head of the East Turkestan Foundation in Istanbul when Uyghurs were having a most difficult time and worked very hard to raise funds in support of the education of Uyghur youth,” Erkin Alptekin said.

“We will remember him as symbol of unity and cooperation, and as a dedicated educator.”

The general was buried with military honors at a funeral service in the afternoon of Feb. 18 at the Kocatepe Mosque in the Karshi Yaka district of Ankara.

An estimated 1,500 people attended Pasha’s funeral, including members of the Turkish Parliament and the deputy military commander of the Turkish army.

Mehmet Riza Bekin Pasha is survived by his wife and two children.

Soldier and humanitarian

Mehmet Riza Bekin Pasha speaks at a conference in Turkey, June 2008. Pasha was born in 1925 in the East Turkestan prefecture of Khotan, in what is now China’s northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR).

At age nine, he moved with his family to Afghanistan and four years later was sent to study at the Maltepe Military High School in Turkey.

He continued his studies at the Land Warfare School in Turkey in 1946 and joined the Turkish army upon his graduation in 1948 from artillery school.

During the Korean War, Pasha led the First Turkish Brigade Field Artillery Battalion as a ranking lieutenant.

Pasha served as assistant military attaché in Tehran, Iran, and in 1977 retired with the rank of brigadier-general.

After retiring from the military, he announced that he had “done my duty as soldier for the Republic of Turkey” and would spend his remaining days contributing to the Uyghur community through humanitarian work.

Pasha was elected president of the Istanbul-based Foundation for East Turkestan in 1986.

From 1989-90, he served as a specialist for the Turkish prime minister in charge of a United Nations humanitarian aid program to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Pasha was also an organizer of the first East Turkestan Congress, in Istanbul in 1992, and founded the East Turkestan Cultural Solidarity Association in 1994. He also founded the East Turkestan National Freedom Center in 1998. He was also the first Uyghur general in the Turkic world to serve under NATO.

Oppression under Chinese rule

Uyghurs, a distinct and mostly Muslim ethnic group indigenous to Xinjiang and scattered through Central Asia and Turkey, have long complained of religious, political, and cultural oppression under Chinese rule, and tensions have simmered there for years.

Uyghurs declared a short-lived East Turkestan Republic in Xinjiang in the late 1930s and 40s but have been ruled by Beijing, which many bitterly oppose, since 1949.

Beijing blames Uyghur separatists for sporadic bombings and other violence in the Xinjiang region.

But international rights groups have accused Beijing of using the U.S. “war on terror” as a pretext to crack down on nonviolent supporters of Uyghur independence.

After deadly ethnic riots killed nearly 200 people in the regional capital of Urumqi last July, authorities announced a continuing security crackdown on supporters of independence for the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and its Uyghur population.

The ethnic violence began July 5 after police suppressed a peaceful demonstration of Uyghurs and left at least 197 mostly Han Chinese residents dead, according to official media.

Exiled Uyghurs have accused Chinese police of firing on unarmed demonstrators who were calling for government action following attacks on Uyghur migrant workers at a factory in southern China.

At least 26 people have since been sentenced to death in connection with the violence, which prompted a regionwide shutdown of Internet and international phone services, with at least 700 people detained by the authorities.

Original reporting by Erkin Tarim and Maidinayi Bawudun for RFA’s Uyghur service. Uyghur service director: Dolkun Kamberi. Translated by Dolkun Kamberi. Written for the Web in English by Joshua Lipes.

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HONG KONG—Chinese authorities in the troubled northwestern region of Xinjiang are scaling up security measures, recruiting new personnel and increasing checks and searches ahead of the Lunar New Year festivities next week.

The mayor of the regional capital of Urumqi, where deadly ethnic riots killed nearly 200 people in July, announced a continuing security crackdown on supporters of independence for the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and its population of Muslim Uyghurs.

Urumqi mayor Jerla Isamudinhe announced a persistent crackdown on the “three forces” of terrorism, separatism, and extremism on Thursday, saying the city faced an “arduous fight against separatism now and for years to come.”

Isamudinhe told a session of the municipal People’s Congress that all “sabotage activities” should be prevented, by keeping a closer eye on migrants’ communities, ex-convicts, and other “sensitive areas and suspicious people.”

Internet content from the region would also be kept under tight control, he said.

New security personnel sought

His speech came as the Xinjiang authorities began a recruitment drive for 5,000 special police officers in the region to prevent recurrences of the Urumqi riots, in which 197 people were killed and 1,600 injured, by official count.

The new forces are charged with detecting terrorist plots and cutting contacts between domestic and overseas “hostile forces,” official media reported.

Those recruited would be classed as civil servants under the leadership of the Xinjiang Regional Public Security Bureau, with their area of operations covering the whole region, Xinhua news agency said.

More than 3,600 people, mostly former military personnel and university graduates, had joined the new force, which began training its first 2,360 recruits on Tuesday in Urumqi, it said.

Local people said a strong police presence was building up in Urumqi.

“There are a lot more police around now,” said a resident surnamed Wang.

“And there are quite a few more special police too. That’s the regional specialized branch of the People’s Armed Police,” he said.

“They are arranging everything around here now.”

Another resident said each residential district was hiring security personnel at monthly salaries of 1,000 yuan.

“It’s for people to go to work as a private security guard in the residential compounds alongside the police and the special police units, taking care of security and the floating population and so on,” he said.

Some missing

Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for the Munich-based World Uyghur Congress, said the authorities had tightened security ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday period.

“The local government is beginning a new round of ‘Strike Hard’ in the run-up to Spring Festival,” Raxit said.

“This crackdown is being carried out according to guidelines established after the July rioting in Urumqi. What this means is that any Uyghur in the Urumqi city limits can be subjected to being stopped and searched at any time by police or Xinjiang special police,” he said, adding that reports showed some people had gone missing altogether.

He said the depiction of the new security initiative as part of a war on terror was misleading.

“The Chinese government wants to clamp down on freedom of speech, and before they step up their oppressive activities, they want to make up a few lies that correspond with what the government needs, in order to mislead the international community,” Raxit said.

“There is already a large increase in police presence in Urumqi,” he said, calling on the Chinese government to open up a dialogue with exiled Uyghur leaders.

Another Urumqi resident said there was scant cheer for local Han Chinese ahead of the Lunar New Year celebrations.

“There aren’t that many people in the supermarkets this year, getting ready for the Lunar New Year. People here are having a terrible time, and no one is buying firecrackers,” he said.

“The July rioting was linked to the poverty, not the poverty to the July riots,” he said.

“Of course it was the Uyghurs who started it. We all know the reason. There’s no use in saying it.”

Migrants targeted

Urumqi authorities have also announced a plan to clear the city’s growing number of migrant communities, who live in what official media described as “shanty towns” around the city.

According to Xinhua, Urumqi has a total of 48 shantytowns, which sit on prime real estate in the downtown area, with some of the homes decades old.

“The areas have gathered people of different ethnic groups including Han, Uyghur, Hui, Kazak, Mongolian, Russian and others,” the agency said.

Original reporting in Mandarin by Qiao Long. Mandarin service director: Jennifer Chou. Translated and written for the Web in English by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Sarah Jackson-Han.